National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative: Reducing Noncompliance with Drinking Water Standards at Community Water Systems

Problem

There are approximately 50,000 regulated drinking water systems that serve water to the same people year-round, referred to as Community Water Systems (CWSs). In FY 2018, 40% of the nation’s CWSs violated at least one drinking water standard. In addition, there were monitoring and reporting violations at more than 30% of CWSs, and violations of health-based standards at seven percent of CWSs.

Goal

A goal of this NECI, begun in FY 2020, is helping to ensure delivery of safe water to communities by improving SDWA compliance and fostering greater collaboration between EPA and states, tribes, and territories to create a more effective national program. An initial focus of this NECI is to increase EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance capacity so it can work more effectively with states, tribes, and territories to meet our shared goal of addressing drinking water violations and risks to public health.

Results

During FY 2020 through 2022, the first three years for implementation of this NECI, the Agency made significant progress towards protecting public health by working collaboratively with states, tribes, and territories. The following examples of NECI activities illustrate the Agency’s efforts to improve drinking water quality at CWSs.

• Decreased the Number of Community Water Systems with Continuous Health Based Violations

• Enforced the SDWA to help ensure communities are provided safe drinking water

EPA issued Safe Drinking Water Act orders to 185 public water systems during 2022.  Some highlights from new and ongoing work during 2022 include the following:

• SDWA 1414 Compliance Orders
  • City of Jackson, Mississippi
  • Benton Harbor, Michigan
• SDWA 1431 Emergency Orders to provide relief to impacted communities
  • Cahokia Heights, Illinois
  • Clarksburg, West Virginia
  • Nine water systems on the Torres Martinez Reservation in California

• Expanded inspector capacity and technical expertise

  • EPA more than doubled compliance monitoring from 2020 to 2022.
    • In FY 2021, EPA performed offsite compliance monitoring of 239 CWSs (more than double the 109 performed in FY 2020) and led or accompanied primacy programs (states, tribes, or territories that have been approved to implement and enforce the public water system program) on 58 onsite inspections.
    • In FY 2022, EPA performed offsite compliance monitoring of 263 CWS and 119 onsite inspections.
  • The Agency provided multiple training events to support primacy programs and maintain EPA direct implementation responsibility.
    • EPA hosted 16 web-based inspector trainings for EPA, state, and/or tribal inspectors in 2021 and 2022. Attendance ranged from 20 to over 180 per course.
    • Since 2020, EPA provided field-based on-the-job inspector training for EPA Regional staff and primacy program staff at 24 public water systems in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, Idaho, Virginia, Wyoming, and Massachusetts
  • EPA increased EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance capacity in the drinking water program so that every EPA region now has credentialed SDWA inspectors.

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  Improved System Performance with Compliance Advisors

  • The Agency launched the Compliance Advisors for Sustainable Water Systems program in FY 2020 to provide effective on-the-ground technical assistance to help public water systems achieve and sustain environmental compliance.
  • The Compliance Advisor program has been providing technical assistance to approximately 200 small drinking water systems. Assistance includes recommendations to improve system compliance, development of system operation protocols, resource evaluations, and operator training.
  • The program shows promising success thus far in resolving long-standing noncompliance. For example, Compliance Advisors helped a New Mexico tribal operator, who operates 10 small community water systems that had been in noncompliance and under enforcement orders for at least 10 years, resolve 96 percent of their drinking water significant deficiencies.